In aircraft impact situations (e.g., landings or crashes), an aircraft's landing gear can absorb some energy of the impact. In crash situations, the landing gear can impact terrain first and slow down the airframe before the airframe subsequently impacts the terrain. Specifically, each landing gear can include a damper that resists rapid compression of the landing gear. This resistance can decelerate the airframe during an impact.
Current landing gear damping systems are passive and are designed to provide optimal deceleration in a crash impact for a specific aircraft gross weight and for a specific crash velocity. However, no two crashes are identical. Over the course of a flight, an aircraft's weight will decrease as it burns fuel and/or releases weapons/cargo. Also, in different circumstances, aircraft will impact terrain 106, at different velocities and/or attitudes. As a result, the aircraft's landing gear may not provide the optimum energy absorption capability to absorb the kinetic energy of the aircraft in a crash.